Procedural Species

BARTLETT, UCL

2020-21

Project Description

Procedural design offers the potential to define a 'recipe' that can be adjusted, refined and repeated to create similar yet unique results. This can be described as a procedural 'species' of designs that can adapt to various contexts and inputs. These species can be used to create procedural datasets for use with machine learning. The following experiments were used to develop my procedural design skills and informed my thesis and final design project, More-Than-Human.

Right: These designs clearly show how variations of the same 'species' could be created. They combine familiar elements in unfamiliar ways, producing uncanny, post-human objects.

Below: In these datasets we developed techniques to select certain faces or points of the model, based on specific properties, such as Curvature and Area, allowing us to differentiate these into different textures, each with suitable conditions for colonisation by a different type of organism. For example, sloped, shaded areas are suitable for the growth of cryptogams, with more exposed areas suiting grasses and ferns.